


Can't Be Unseen

by Cookies_and_Chaos



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Gen, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28732296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos
Summary: Once the daylight was back in their eyes, Susan could see the horror etched in Lucy's face, and knew the mistake she had made. Written for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020, Day 11, "Eleven Dark Tunnels".
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020





	Can't Be Unseen

Footsteps on the stairs finally broke Susan's focus on the horror in front of her. Three sets of footsteps, clattering and tripping up through the darkness and Millie's cry of, "For goodness sake, Susan! Come on."

Millie had always been one to get to the point. Susan should have been in as great of a hurry as them to get away from this room but she couldn't look away. It felt wrong somehow to have found this poor woman and to just leave her down here, alone in the dark. Even if she didn't know she was being left on her own.

"Susan!"

That time Millie's voice had an undertone of panic to it and it forced movement into Susan's legs. She walked backwards to the stairs, not wanting to turn her back on the woman until the very last moment, and finally climbed the stairs after the others. Back above ground, with the light of day back in her eyes, drove home how dark the room had been, how everything had been soaked in evil, left like a trail on everything this man, this murderer, had touched.

They were arguing. The others. Susan could hear it as though it were far away and she were eavesdropping on a private conversation. Lucy was upset and when Susan finally dared look at her, she saw her mistake. In the moment, driven by the need to find the _animal_ who did this, she had seen Lucy for her skills. For her talent. She hadn't stopped to think what forcing Lucy to look at that poor woman would do to Lucy.

Susan murmured an apology. Or she thought she did. She wasn't sure exactly what she said, just that she was so desperately sorry for forgetting the other side of Lucy's tremendous memory. The burden that came with such a gift. Perhaps she didn't apologise, or may she didn't apologise well enough, because Jean snapped at her and Susan would have snapped back but she wasn't sure what Jean had said either. All she could think about was that, eventually, what they say down in the room would become a blur to all of them, a nightmare with faded edges and softened focus. They would all lose the details.

Lucy wouldn't.

Millie led Lucy away with an arm around her shoulder, Jean just in front of them. And Susan? Susan couldn't move again. She should never have brought them all into this...


End file.
